


It's the promise of life, it's the joy in your heart.

by carvargeeoh



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Ben POV, Coming Out, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 23:24:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20732441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carvargeeoh/pseuds/carvargeeoh
Summary: Richie comes out to Ben, and sitting on a street curb, the two try and figure out what to say





	It's the promise of life, it's the joy in your heart.

**Author's Note:**

> I dug deep and it's a personal one, so its un-beta'd. wrote it very much on the fly and cut a lot out... i'm making up writing conventions at this point lmao! honestly ive never been one for fantasy grief fulfillment stuff when writing for myself, i'm all about healing in loss baby
> 
> hope you enjoy!
> 
> title is from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A3W5v1dNNI

Richie lives in an East LA house with yellow, bumpy walls that he's covered in rock band posters, unframed for the most part. He makes the hardwood floors and decently expensive counter tops look filthy and mundane - scuffed to hell and textured with hardened substances left un-wiped. The couch spans disproportionately in his living room, lumpy, feathery, old and long. Sitting in it is like being swallowed, the alcohol stains splashed across its green fabric say as much. No carpets, so the dark varnish in the hallway has rubbed off into massive streaks of tan.

Richie’s usually desperate to entertain no matter how ill fitted his living space is to anyone but him - any of them are welcome crash there between flights or visiting the city. It's a convenient place in a convenient spot, and it’s not that Ben isn’t in LA often, he is. But if Richie wanted him to pretend he’s living his best life letting pee erode the nice tile around his toilet he’d have harassed Ben into doing so by now.

That’s where they are now. Ben dropped in for the weekend for work related reasons. Richie proposed a coffee place close to the hotel before catching his flight but last second, mid Uber drive, lead Ben on a chaotic route to some random breakfast joint. He jumped him, basically, coming around the corner and yelling in his ear, sounding like he hadn’t slept all night. He hadn’t, really, rattling off the crass woe’s of comedy writing, then rattling off his order, then barely eating it in favor of probing and bashing Ben on his job and love life. 

Richie rubs his hands together, presses his fingers into his palms, his legs bounce at crazy speeds under the table. They’re nervous tics developed from having to force down a fidgety nature in a professional atmosphere. He hasn’t let up with the flurry of mannerisms since the second they sat down.

When they’d boxed their leftovers and walked onto the busying street, Richie asked; “How did you feel before getting with Beverly, like when we were kids? Compared to now, living with her?” It crept up out of a relatively regular discussion. Awkward, hesitant timing

After so many years of strange, repressed yearning, bitterness, keeping hope and pain close to his heart, it’s now a reality. Ben admits to feeling that, at times, he can’t believe it’s real. He’s grateful. Playing with words in his mouth before saying, “I don’t know, I don’t feel deserving. But that’s, you know, another issue.”

Richie’s quiet, staring at him with brows furrowed and mouth pressed tight. Ben wasn’t planning to ask for an elaboration, but Rich abruptly reaches out and slaps his hand onto Ben’s shoulder, startling him. 

“Ben,” a hard look and a pause, “I’m going to need to get something off my chest. It’s going to have to happen, and you’re, sorry man, you’re going to have to the poor fuck subjected to it first because you’re catching me at a _ real _convenient thought process.”

“Alright?”

Richie continues to stare, eyes slightly bulging in panicked concentration, jaw grinding back and forth. His hand lifts off of Ben’s shoulder rigidly, quickly slapping back down like he made a mistake trying to take it off. He raises his other hand to clasp the opposite side, squeezing, making a face of constipated apprehension. He shakes him a bit, squeezes again, slides his palms up and down the length of Ben’s arms, and finally pulls back. 

“What are you-”

Richie shushes him squeezing the bridge of his nose, swearing under his breath, shaking his body of invisible water.

"I feel like this is something I might- I mean, you might.. i might want to say to my friends, like, of all the fucking things we've been through, coming out shouldn't be on my list of, ‘oh damn this might be a shocker!' As if homosexuality can compare to killer clowns from fucking outer space - do you ever think about that shit? What was that thing, seriously, meteorites? aliens? and I've been trying, you know, but going into these LA gay bars, dude, its like I don't know if I fit the daddy fantasy or an aged ottery...unfit body type or maybe some kids coked out creepy uncle fetish, but I for sure don't want some 25 year old twink to recognize me from a old Netflix special where I'm joking about whatever fake ‘totally have had sex with women’ joke I regurgitated in front of maybe 400 fucking people on the regular, all the while I sip of a fruit cocktail hopefully named something fittingly humiliating like strawberry vodka jagermeister swirl, feeling like the old ass man that I _am_.

I usually end up on my lap top browsing porn hub - not even _ clicking _on clips, just fucking hovering my mouse to play the epileptic previews like some depraved teenager too scared to confront the image of a naked ass hole covered in spunk, like your worst wet-nightmare - not your’s Ben, mine, don't worry. And, you know, it's hard coming out at 40. I'd love to have the healthy joint control of a 23 year old but I threw my knee out running to my fucking lyft last week and I don't know if my gag reflex is going to permit blowjobbery at the rates I'm learning the young gays are going at. It'd be a great set to come out on though. 'That one time I gagged and puked on a guys cock giving my first head and this is my coming out moment cellar I'm currently performing in. Can I PLEASE get a buzz-feed interview! Hot ones? Anyone!" 

"Richie - man, slow the hell down-"

"No - that’d be fucking, like, cathartic or something." He trips up on air, "my point, my actual point - I'm gay. I'm gay, I've always been gay and I'm going to be real. Because you get it, Ben, you're going to understand, but then you're..." Rubs his hands down his face punishingly, "you probably aren't going to understand this..shit.”

A deep closed mouth sigh, "Its hard for my coming to Jesus moment to be met with my fucking..." Desperately, he looks Ben in the eye, "childhood _ crush _ dying, after getting stabbed through the chest with an over sized lobster, spider clown leg and crushed under its creepy tavern of fucking baby bones.” his voice hits a shrill panic, "that isn't exactly a podcast topic, FUCK!" Arms thrown up in the air where they'd previously been animatedly flinging about. He turns in a circle as if to storm off or pace, but notices quickly that they're still in public. Self consciously, he lowers them back down to his sides, and he looks away at nothing. Walking a little forward, dropping to the curb and slumping his head in his hands.

"You're one lucky bastard Ben." 

Ben bites the inside of his lip, nods and pats him on the back, sitting himself down on the curb too. 

"Rich...." Caught on words, he's going to say the only thing on his mind, "I'm sorry" 

"Yeah man, being 40 and learning how to douche-" 

"No, about Eddie" 

Richie deflates, looking like he's in psychical pain. There's a palpable ache to him moving his hands from underneath his glasses to his lap.

"I'm sick of feeling like a ABBA song."

It's a vivid memory. Ghastly jade illuminating everything, the stench of old piss, shit and river water. Something poisonous and alien in the air that he couldn't help but gasp in and out, inhaling and exhaling in painful lungfuls. And though that cavern had been enormous, every movement he made weighed on his muscles like 1989. He was 14 years old walking home from the library in summer heat, only this time it was dark, cold, and wet. Phantom fats clinging to his exhaustion. The warmth expelling out from a dormant form, and the sight of him slouched, motionless, open eyed and dead. The tremble of everything around them, in that moment, felt like the painful, deep boned tremors shared between them crawling out of the lake. Richie was shaking on the walk back, strolling through a city avenue of bright early august greens, talking about things only talked about when you might as well had lost it all and gained the world. Summer heat drying their clothes, sandy dirt displacing under each step. No phones or keys on them, no cars - walking through the backwoods like friends. Dappled shadows, Mike and Bev humming the Thundercats theme song, Richie's eerie pained noises, and Bill Denbrough weaving in front of them on a silver bike running smoothly, creaking. Painful, wonderful stuff.

"I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to come out. To me, at least. I don't think I'd ever guess."

He looks up over the brim of his glasses, blandly.

"Yeah?" 

"What, is that bad?" 

"No, dude, of course not. I think I’m the undisputed master at keeping this shit on the DL by now.”

Someone starts playing the saxophone from inside a cafe across the street.

"I guess I could have been more poetic, huh." He keeps staring forward, nothing but a far away look in his eyes. "Your maggoty complexion reminds me of sweaty cheese and I like it when you let me lick your ice cream." 

The year book paper, and for years, in his actions, something unsettlingly wrong and broken. Vague smog in his peripheral. The sudden burst of nostalgic, intense clarity seeing her in the parking lot was enough to make him forget about anything but that moment, right then, and that summer 27 years ago. Eddie and Richie, they were as thick as syrup. He guesses that was a dig at him, but he doesn’t mind. 

"A lot of people say that your first love never really goes away." 

Richie practically barks out a laugh. 

In silence, contemplating, afraid of what to say and afraid there's nothing to say at all. Ben has been remembering a lot of things lately - remembers the enduring grief of unrequited love, and the deep rooted, heady gratitude of it being met. He's scared that all Richie wants right now is for someone to understand him, and Ben’s scared he can’t offer that in the ways Richie very obviously wants. It's hard to not feel guilty over how clumsy it can still feel being frank and outwardly loving, with no apologies. Bloody palms slipping up against one another, open wounds catching on the flayed edges of another's open wound.

Both continue to look forward as the early morning traffic loudly rolls by and their anxious stomachs tighten around the smell of sweet coffees permeating from the diners. Gasoline and restaurant dumpsters rotting in layered waste. What to fucking say. He's happy, he’s _ so happy, _ but the process of speaking that truth right now is becoming increasingly troubled.

"I wanna start dating," Richie looks like he's holding something in the back of his throat. 

"Start dating...men. And so far, every time I try, it goes all" he makes a high whistle tone, following it by imitating an explosion, "because I'm still pussying out, and you know" movement with his hands "wishful thinking"

"Yeah."

"Yeah." 

Ben's stomach gnaws around the smells of awakening restaurant grills and ovens, and he clenches his jaw. He wants more eggs benedict, he wants to reach into his leftover pancakes. It'd be way too Richie to joke about making a Grindr account right now. Truly, what he wants to say is, 'I'm proud'. It's a hard thing to say, it feels sad. 

"Sooo...where’s Beverly-"

"Richie, please don't try and turn this around." 

Richie frowns, rocks back and forth chewing on his bottom lip, rubs his hand under his jaw and scratches his head, rocks forward and back again. 

"Damn it, this is hard.”

Ben picks a gum wrapper up from lying in the black gutter, twirling it between his fingers. He isn’t good at speaking - he doesn't say things straight, he usually doesn't say anything at all.

"...Making one big ass step makes you realize that you haven't made too many of them in your life...there's still a whole damn marathon left.”

"...Almost better to have a physical manifestation?"

"You're making me remember that Paul Bunyan statue."

"Paul Bunyan?"

"Happened when we weren't hanging out that summer."

"No shit. I was in a summer class and got called fat by Beverly...and then, uh, chased around school...with her head on fire. I tried to kiss her."

"Seriously? You almost shared tongue with that thing? Hot. Did he make her do a lil' dance? Sing a lil' tune?" Richie quietly performs theatrics, hunching shoulders up and waving his arms about in manner that still looks heavy, and drops quickly.

"I genuinely can not believe that clown didn't clock me - I was like foreskin encapsulating an uncircumcised penis head," he mimics gentle jerk off movements, "jackass couldn't coax it out of my psyche until I was 40 fucking years old. I'd be creeped the hell _ out _ if you knew Benny, not gonna lie." 

Ben laughs. Abruptly but not unexpectedly, he thinks about what Eddie might say right now. 

"Uh, have you ever, you know." They continue eye contact, Ben makes a hand movement besides his knees. 

Richie frowns.

"It's not inappropriate to ask, right? Excuse me if-"

"Are you seriously assuming I'm a virgin right now?" 

"You were talking about it!" 

"Oh my _ god _ , your goofy ass sounds so much like Bev. She's going to be all, ‘wow rich, so happy for you, but does this mean you’re a virgin? Please tell me you’re a virgin’ when I tell her, _ guaranteed _." 

"Are you?"

"NO! Fuck you! I’ve fucked..._ plenty _ of women. It was a survival tactic man. You can’t be in my game at my age with out some knowledge on the matter.The 90’s weren’t exactly ‘gay right-y’ - and why does me being gay and closeted equate to me never having sex? Christ." 

"What about men, though?" Which is met with quick silence. "You don’t have to answer, of course, I’m sorry if-”

"No, no yeah, I've done some things. Heavy petting, swapping spit. It’s happened in the last year. But uh, no. No, I haven’t slept with a man. Yet."

Ben nods, puts his chin in his hands. Despite the creeping spread of grief in his heart, he can’t help but smile. Richie, talking with all this purpose and direct intent. The confused balancing act of his big feelings and anxious humor tipping in favor of honest expression.

“You’re lucky.”

He looks up from his hands to see Richie's head is cast down. His voice warps.

“Seeing him again...it was like everything from 27 years didn’t matter, because he was right there in front of me. Still short and a total head case. I don’t know, it felt like we had forever then. Even to the last second, in the sewers when our lives were on the line and I was terrified we were all going to fucking die, it still felt like, ‘hey, so when this is all over, let's get a drink, just you and me?’

I don’t know what I would say, I can’t think of the words now, and I couldn’t then. I just wanted to say something, I knew I would have. Because it’s taken me so damn long to admit that it’s love. And I know I shouldn’t be wishful, but I am. I just want to-to fucking joke around with him again, fuck.”

Head slung between his knees, breaths heavy, Ben reaches over and puts his arm around Richie the best he can in their positions. His voice becomes muffled between his jeans and legs, but Ben’s ear is up against Richie’s slumped form, so the words warmly vibrate through his body.

“I have dreams that I know are dreams, where he’s alive and hops out of a hospital bed acting like nothing’s wrong, with Stan in the hallway with you guys. I can’t stop hugging him, and gripping onto Stan, and I can’t stop knowing that none of it is _ real _. I’ll be crying, feeling like my whole body is falling the fuck apart, knowing but still feeling elated tragic fucking happiness, and they’ll be like ‘what’s wrong Richie? What’s wrong?’”

“I get those too.”

“Yeah?” 

“I do.” 

He raises his head up, “They’re so god damn evil, man. They ruin my entire day each time. Time to make Richie unable to crack a joke for 26 hours!”

Ben sighs deeply through his nose, and hums in agreement. The one’s he’s had he’s talking to them, usually saying things he wishes he could have said. He feels selfish for them, because in those dreams Stan and Eddie are soothing his crippling desire and wish to spend more time with them. _ ‘It’s ok, dude, it’s fine!’ _

“Does time ever feel strange to you?” 

No longer stretching, existing as passing seconds and only as passing seconds. The past up against the present, up against the future. Forgetting where he is, lost. It's all melded into something traumatically incoherent. 

Richie nods. "Are you ever confused what age you are?"

A truck rushes by, shaking the pavement. A woman runs past with 3 toddlers. They look like such kids, sitting on a curb knees knocking together as if they have nowhere to go and nowhere to be. Ben nods.

Richie loudly sniffs. “When’s your flight again?”

He digs into his jacket’s pocket for his phone, unlocking it. “I gotta be at the airport in 40 minutes.”

“Aw shit.” Richie looks around at their surroundings, “We’re having a full display in front of this fucking restaurant right now.”

“Yeah, let's get up.”

“Call an Uber, man.”

Ben fiddles with his phone and apps, looking back up at Richie who looks like he wants to say more.

“Ben.”

“Richard.”

He’s covered in a fast, bear grip embrace, crushing his right hand holding onto his phone between their chests painfully. 

“Shut up. Shut up. Let me just hug your sexy body.” Richie whispers through a jaw tightly clenched.

“I'm not saying anything-”

“_Please _ shut up.”

Eyes slipping closed, they stay like that for awhile.

When they break apart Richie looks more sullen than before, posture slumped and face sagging. He looks worried, relieved, depressed and resigned all in the same expression. 

"I'm gay. Just in case you forgot." 

"Yeah, I haven't…I...I'm proud of you, Rich." 

A huff of laughter, "Proud? What the hell?" 

"You know what I mean." 

"I guess." Nervously laughing now, adjusting his glasses, like a bashful teen.

"You probably shouldn't start off in gay bars, by the way." 

He cringes. "Yup…" looks at his feet for a beat. "And we should probably set up some...Skype...thing." 

"Are you going to come out to the rest that way?" 

"You want me to send a fax instead?" 

"No, asshole." 

"_Yeah _ , no _shit._ I'm coming out with some sort of verbal communication. Setting up sticky notes on a window and crossing off names from a list one by one feels weird at this point."

"No, you’re right."

"Can't wait for it, honestly._ I- I - Billy I can't hear you, step out onto your wife's mansions 4th porch buddy _. "

A car pulls up that Ben checks and sees is his ride. They share a glance, silently agreeing they wish this could have been longer. Maybe in a closed environment, on Richie's lumpy couch smoking a bowl. _ We both suck at this, we are both so bad at this, I hope we can get better. It wasn’t so bad. _

"Log onto your steam account for once in your life and play COD with me and Mike, yeah? When you get back?"

"That's assuming Beverly isn't using it." 

"Jesus. Come on, make your own damn account and stop getting insecure your girlfriend can pawn your ass at first person shooters." 

"Yeah, yeah…" 

Any guilt boiling up won’t serve Richie, so it turns into vapor. Any pity won’t either, so it isn’t manifesting. Longing, or wishing, escapism, trying not to remember, actively forgetting. It’s about wanting, and it’s about loving. He grips Richie by the shoulder.

"I'm proud of you, and I love you." 

"Shit, I love you too man." 

Giving him a pat, Ben slips into the back of the car as Richie leans down to close the door for him.

"I'm going to be honest, that was kind of hot." 

Ben laughs, "I'll text you when I land." 

"It was hot!" 

"Bye Richie." 

"I don't know if I'll be able to contain any possible dick pics after that, but have a nice flight." Richie throws the door closed and mouths 'call me', putting his hand to his ear miming an old telephone. Ben nods reassuringly, _'totaaaally, for sure, for sure.'_

As the car pulls away and Ben makes small talk, he can’t help but be swept away in the pull of speeding, floating acceleration. Watching the city loom over and blur by, powering forward, the suffocating ache spreading through his body has become intimately one with the action of looking ahead. In his head; contentment. 

Stepping through a forest vivid and swarming with nondescript sensations and into a alarmingly coherent present. On foot, or on a bike. Richie thinks about this walking to the parking garage. Each step carrying a body that hurts, and burns, but feels so impossibly light. It’s funny how it all feels so sharp but dull at the same time, and terrible but so beautiful too.


End file.
